Articulating Design Thinking and Integrative STEM Learning through Virtual Dissection Activity

Abstract

This article chronicles the implementation of virtual dissection and redesign activity as part of a special summer programme for a undergraduate year 1 engineering course on thermodynamics and energy systems. Students were tasked to perform a virtual dissection of a mosquito trap to identify the components and establish their functionalities, then ideated areas of improvement of the existing design through the 3D CAD model. Thereafter, students spent the remainder of the programme deriving and building possible designs, where they rapid prototyped their own version of the mosquito trap. The activity culminated with a challenge where their prototypes were subjected to actual site testing to establish the prototype’s efficacy. This case study explores the cohesion between design thinking, design processes and integrated STEM learning through the analysis of the field notes, video artefacts, online collaborative worksheets, and completed prototypes, shedding light on the affordance of the design activity on integrated STEM learning.